


hero worship and pizza sauce

by polkadot



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Hero Worship, M/M, Not angsty, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6439432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All David has to do is beat Novak. This is a herculean task - but the reward is worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hero worship and pizza sauce

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by @BlueIsAColor_'s wish for Goffin/Federer. It wouldn't quite go full romantic Goffin/Federer for me, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyways. :) Complete fluff.

It’s a bright April morning, and the sun bouncing off the clay means spring to David, far more than the humid furnace of Miami he’s just come from. Monte Carlo is crisp for his first practice, putting on its best face, and he stretches into his serve with a smile.

He has a lot to exorcise. In both of his last two matches with Djokovic, he firmly believes he was the better player on the day. Djokovic may be dominating everything right now, even when he plays shitty (which isn’t exactly attractive; “we have an unbeatable #1 who can’t be defeated even when he’s shitty” isn’t really a good calling card for the sport), but David has been the better player _twice_ in the last seven months - and has lost twice anyway.

But it’s too nice a day to waste feeling sorry for himself, and apart from the Djokovic problem David’s been playing quite well this year, so he shakes it off and throws himself into practice, chasing down dropshots and shouting profane jokes at his coach when he can’t quite reach them.

It’s not until afterwards, as he towels off, that he realizes who has the practice court after him.

“Hey,” Roger says, somehow managing to make ‘hey’ sound suave, and how the fuck does he do that, anyway? 

David’s coach tells him he’ll see him later. David’s coach is a bastard who knows all about David’s hero-worship crush on Roger, and enjoys leaving him to flounder. 

“Hey,” David says back, entirely failing to make ‘hey’ sound suave. “Are you feeling better?”

Which, like, now he sounds like he expected Roger’s gastro to last for weeks, like he wasn’t sure if Roger was still shitting his intestines out, and isn’t that a lovely picture, ugh, why does he even…

Roger sets his racquet bag down. “Yeah,” he says, and he’s smiling, which makes David forget his train of thought and die a little inside. “The problem with having kids is they give you everything. But I’m good now - don’t worry, I won’t give it to you.”

Oh my god, David just accused Roger Federer of being contagious. He chokes back the instinctive apology that rises to his lips, because that would be mega awkward, as Dom would say, and manages a stifled “Great, glad to hear it,” instead, which is _hardly any better_.

“Saw your match with Djokovic,” Roger says. “You’ll get him next time.”

David would like to believe that. But at the moment, all he can think is, “You saw the match?”

Apparently his disbelief showed in either his voice or his face, because Roger laughs. “Only a little. Enough to see you playing well.”

“Not well enough,” David says, shrugging, trying to hit ‘humorously rueful’.

Roger looks sympathetic, and he claps David on the shoulder. “Don’t give up. You played him close.”

Right in this moment, with Roger’s hand on his shoulder and Roger meeting his eyes, friendly and open, David would promise just about anything. Roger wants the moon? Sure. Roger wants him to switch to a one-handed backhand? Sure. Roger wants him to play naked, or wrapped in a Swiss flag? Sure. “I won’t give up,” he says, and tries to look cool.

“Good,” Roger says, smiling. “We can’t let Novak win everything, can we?”

David agrees. Roger’s hand is still on his shoulder. He’d agree with anything right now.

~//~

David is in the locker room getting ready for a practice when his phone buzzes. It’s Dom. 

_mega bad luck sorry_

Despite Dom’s crypticness, David knows what he must be talking about. With a sinking heart, he pulls up the draw. And there it is, in black and white – he’ll be facing Djokovic again in the third round, if they both get that far. Could he be drawn in another section? Obviously not. The draw gods have a sadistic streak, and they seem determined to punish him lately. 

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuckety fuckety fuck.”

And then he takes it back, the Monaco draw gods don’t hate him, the _universe_ hates him, because Roger pokes his head around the corner and says, “You okay over there?”

David’s all out of fucks at the moment, apparently, because he just gestures with the hand holding his phone and says, “The draw. Djokovic.”

Roger winces in sympathy. “You’re seeded though, right? Not too early.”

“I’m just tired of playing him,” David admits. “I can have a great week, and he’s there to return eight hundred balls and save a million break points and fuck me over. Again.”

“You’d rather be in my quarter?” Roger asks.

David looks up quickly, his tongue suddenly remembering all at once that it’s usually extremely tied up around Roger. “That’s not what I … obviously… it’s always an honor to play you.”

Roger’s smiling, so David’s awkwardness hasn’t mortally offended him, thankfully. “You’d have a better chance against this old grandpa?”

“No, definitely not,” David says, frankly. “But it’s more fun to play you.”

That makes Roger actually laugh. “Maybe next time,” he says, and disappears to go back to whatever he was doing. 

David’s looked back down to his phone and is in the middle of texting _fuuuuuuck you get stan and i get novak so not fair_ to Dom, when Roger’s voice says, “Hey.”

David saves himself from falling off the bench, but it’s a near thing. He looks up with a quizzical eyebrow, because he doesn’t trust his voice right now. 

Roger’s still smiling. “How about this? If you beat Novak, I’ll play doubles with you in Rome.”

“!!!!” David says.

Roger takes his flabbergasted silence as doubt. “I’m sure we could get a wildcard.”

David bites his lip and forces out an “Okay.” Which sounds dumb, so he adds, “That sounds great. I’ll do my best.”

Later, Dom will tell him that he thinks arranging compensation from another player based on the outcome of a match is probably like, illegal or something, and he’ll have to report them to the TIU, and David will throw a bread roll at him and then put him in a headlock. 

Now, Roger is smiling at him, and David is a melted puddle of something, raclette maybe.

~//~

He drops the first set, but he takes the second in tiebreak after Novak’s last shot hits the netcord, giving David enough time to tee up and hit a winner down the line. He’s playing well, and Novak is a little off; not a lot off, but just enough that the openings are there if David can take them. 

He’s been here before; he tries not to remember the Cincy match where he was up 3-0 and serving in the third set, before Novak took the last six games. That’s the stuff of nightmares, really. He just needs to hold steady and play his game, go for his shots and hope Novak blinks first. Third time’s the charm, right? He’s been competitive in his last two matches, and this is his third chance. He can do this.

(David doesn’t let himself think about Roger’s offer, not now. He was probably teasing. Right? And anyway, thinking about Roger always distracts him, and he can’t afford that right now. Not with Novak looming across the net and doing that uncanny widening-his-eyes thing.)

They battle it out under the Monte Carlo sun, each facing break points but neither giving way, until Novak is serving at 4-5, and David knows that all he needs is one lucky game.

And then suddenly it’s 30-all. And then Novak tries for a crosscourt winner that just misses. And then David stretches to reach a ball, hits a desperation shot that lands tamely midcourt, somehow recovers, and has only one option for the next shot – a risky passing shot that will have to be inch-perfect. 

And then somehow it kisses the line, and David can’t believe it, but Novak’s at the net looking a little impatient, so he jogs there and shakes his hand, and… he’s done it.

Afterwards, he doesn’t even think about Roger’s offer, because there are approximately eighty million people wanting to talk to him, and about half of them are trying to get him to make grand Tomic-like proclamations about how he's awesome and will be #1 soon, and David knows how much ribbing he’d take in the locker room if he said anything of the sort. He says modest boring things instead and flees the press as soon as he can, which isn’t very soon. It’s only the third round, and Novak just doesn’t lose this early.

He’s just out of the showers, and trying to find his clothes – Dom’s looking far too innocent, so he’s probably hidden them, sigh – when his phone buzzes on the bench. David fends off Dom’s attempt to snag it, because it’s probably his mother and god knows what Dom might say. He’s a lot more mischievous than most people assume from the innocent face. 

But it’s not his mother, and David shoves Dom away, too intent on simultaneously trying to keep his towel up and carry on a conversation with a tennis icon to have any space left over for play-tussling. “Hello, Roger,” he says.

Dom promptly sits down on the bench, props his chin in his hands, and bats his eyelashes. David flips him off. 

“Hi,” Roger says. He sounds good, but then he always sounds good. “Great win. That last game was crazy!”

“Yeah,” David says, feeling the smile on his face getting out of hand. “Yeah, it was. I got lucky.”

Dom claps his hands over his heart. David turns his back.

“You played great,” Roger says, a laugh in his voice. “You still interested in doubles?”

David has a mental freakout, but he is an adult, and he says, calmly, “Yes, that sounds like fun.”

“I’ll talk to them about a wildcard,” Roger says. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Somehow David agrees that he is too, and wishes Roger good luck in his own third round match (vs. Mahut, who’s a great guy but no match for him), and says goodbye in a cool and not at all starstruck way.

“You’ve got it bad,” Dom says, right behind his ear.

David tips his head back and glares at him. “Shut up, Dominic.”

Dom promptly pulls his towel off his hips and runs away with it, startling Gasquet, who’s just come in. David thinks he hears a confused mutter from Gasquet about “kids these days,” but he’s already making his next move. If Dom thinks he’s going to chase him about the locker room stark naked, he’s sorely mistaken. David’s just beaten Novak Djokovic, and he’s going to play doubles with Roger Federer. He has an image to maintain.

(He’ll just steal Dom’s racquet bag, left unprotected on the bench, and wear his clothes instead.)

~//~

For a little while it looks like David and Dom might meet in the semifinals, with the winner to possibly play Roger in the finals, but real life doesn’t work like fairytales (however many times David dreams about it). Dom loses to Stan in the quarterfinals, David loses to Stan in the semifinals (David thinks Dom was joking about making a Stan voodoo doll, but he’s not entirely sure), and Roger loses to a resurgent Rafa, before Rafa takes out Stan to win Monte Carlo for the eighty-millionth time. 

“He really should share,” Dom says, stealing the last piece of pizza. 

David’s first doubles practice with Roger is tomorrow, and he’s feeling the butterflies. It’s just doubles. He’s played doubles so many times. And yet never with _Roger_.

He watches Rafa bite the trophy. “How much do you want to bet that he regrets starting the biting thing?” Especially Madrid.

“No bet,” Dom says, his mouth full. 

David has Roger’s number saved in his contacts under François Renard, because he doesn’t trust Dom not to steal his phone and send Roger something ‘from David’. Dom’s not absolutely horrible, it wouldn’t be “omg Roger I so have a crush on you,” but it would be something random like a picture of a platypus, or something embarrassing like a video of David singing karaoke. And then Roger would be polite but so confused.

“You’re turning red,” Dom says, swallowing his pizza. “Are you thinking about Rafa biting you?”

David glares at him.

“Oh. About _Roger_ biting you?”

David says, “I don’t know why I put up with you.”

Dom slings an arm around his shoulder and kisses his cheek, messily. (There’ll be pizza sauce on his face now, David just knows it.) “Well,” he says in David’s ear, “most guys might get insecure about the whole hero-worship thing.”

“Are you?” David asks, moving the remote so Dom doesn’t sit on it. “Insecure about Roger?”

Dom laughs, and his mouth tickles David’s ear. “No. Roger would be too polite to steal you. Plus I think you like me too. At least sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” David says, judiciously, and turns his head to kiss him.

~//~

David and Roger win two matches in Rome, then go out in the quarterfinals to the Bryans. It isn’t a shabby result, given that the Bryans are probably the best team of all time (although in a minor slump lately). David’s happy with it, and the experience of playing doubles with Roger was amazing. 

(Dom says that it’s at least partly because he gets to slap hands with Roger two hundred times in a match, but Dom is a tease.)

“We should do this again sometime,” Roger says, after they congratulate the Bryans.

Somewhere along the line, David managed to learn how to speak to Roger without blushing, even though he still gets butterflies, every time. “Yes,” he says, smiling. “We should. I had a great time.”

“So did I,” Roger says, smiling back. “You beat Novak again, you call me, okay?”

David is going to beat Novak every single time they meet. This is going to happen. 

Dom pokes holes in this plan and laughs a lot, but he also puts together playlists of highlights from Novak matches, so David forgives him.


End file.
